Before he became a late night legend celebrated for his oddball humor (and his ginger coif), Conan O’Brien worked behind the scenes as a writer and landed a highly sought-after gig penning sketches on Saturday Night Live. He stuck to it from 1987-1991, working alongside other comedy greats like Bob Odenkirk, Jack Handey and Greg Daniels. But he might never have made his talk show mark without a little show called The Simpsons. The Fox mainstay was the direct link between O'Brien's writing work and his leap to hosting for NBC's Late Night, and the Simpsons gig came along at the perfect time, as the comedian had hit a rough patch at SNL. Speaking to guest Matt Groening on the podcast Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, the host shard:You are a big part of my life changing in this amazing way. My origin story, for people that don't know, is I was working on Saturday Night Live. I was in a funk. I loved that job, and I loved everyone there, but I thought, ‘I need to go. I'm just in a bad place in my life. So I walked away from SNL with no job. and two of your writers, I think it was [Mike] Reiss and [Al] Jean, heard that Conan O'Brien might be loose.Mike Reiss and Al Jean are Simpsons royalty at this point, and also earned my eternal respect for co-creating The Critic (starring another SNL vet in Jon Lovitz). The fact that they were so in tune with the sketch show's writing staff turnaround is a good sign of their knack for corralling talent. The way Conan O'Brien puts it, he wasn't waiting all that long between his somewhat disgruntled Saturday Night Live exit and his Simpsons welcome. As he put it:So the next thing I knew, I was submitting some of the sketches I had written on SNL, and then I was told, ‘You've got a job on the Simpsons, and you need to be here like in 4 days.’ And it really saved my life.O'Brien will always be remembered by Simpsons fans for "The Monorail Song," and certain other episodes, though Kumail Nanjiani hilariously pointed out how relatively little impact the host had on the show overall, despite always being connected to it. (He wrote enough Mr. Burns for that to be his favorite, at least.)O'Brien knew he was in a lofty place, professionally, and that he landed the gig without even being well-versed in traditional scripting by way of act breaks and arcs and the like. He continued:Just such a fantastic legendary writer room. I was so intimidated when I showed up. I had never written that form before. I had only written sketch and suddenly they're saying, 'This has to happen in this act, but then in that act...' I'm like, ‘What are you talking about?’ But it it was is a magical part of my life. So I thank you. God, do I thank you. I don't know where I'd be if I hadn't gone there.Conan O'Brien went on to cameo in The Simpsons among many other A+ appearances, took on a mission with Archer, he was a hilarious Oscars host (and is coming back next year), is one of SNL's Five-Timer's Club members. and can bosts a slew of other career highs. (His Toy Story 5 character is the absolute best.) And it's entirely possible he wouldn't have landed any of those if Mike Reiss and Al Jean didn't clock his SNL exit. Though the latest season has already concluded, Conan O'Brien Must Go can be streamed in full via HBO Max subscription.